Open M & Sa 8AM - 12PM, Tu-F 8AM - 4PM, closed Su except during the summer (10 AM - 1 PM)
(609) 393-4264 Website Google Maps
Gravitas: Decor: Cost: Proximity:
(Updated July 2015) Arctic has been manufacturing Ice Cream in Trenton since 1931. Actually, the original factory was on Hermitage Avenue. The current factory (a WWII era Quonset Hut where they’ve manufactured for only 55 years or so), is one block into Ewing, though it has a Trenton postal address. According to Tom Green, the owner, the same two Polish women have operated the packing line for 49 years.
Arctic is a great place to buy ice cream if you’re stocking up for a party. The smallest container is a half gallon ($6), or you can get the 3 gallon tub ($32). It comes in (count ’em) 45 flavors (though not all flavors are available year round).
Some of the flavors have a cult following. For example, the Peanut Butter Ice Cream is the only ice cream served at Chick and Nello’s Homestead Restaurant in Hamilton. And you can find references on the web to many other establishments in NJ that proudly and exclusively serve Arctic’s products.
My own limited taste sample suggests that the ice cream is pretty darn good. It doesn’t have the butterfat content of a super-premium, but is delicious all the same. Note that a 3-gallon tub works out to $1.33/pint, a quarter to a third of what a pint of Haagen Daz will set you back.
In addition to their own products, Arctic stocks a large number of ice cream novelties which they sell by the case at very reasonable prices: popsicles, ice cream bars, as well as Spumoni, Tartuffe, and tiramisu. Also, ice by the bag, and dry ice.
Well worth checking out. There’s also a lovely little breakfast and lunch counter with a full ice cream bar on the premises.
My family had specialty arctic icecream deserts at Thanksgiving and Christmas back in the 1950s and 1960s ~ Turkeys made of chocolate icecream and santas made of mint chip and straberry. Your deserts are a part of our family history. I live in NC now, but get back to NJ upon occasion and will come find you! How wonderful you are still in business! Are you still doing the figurines?
Josie McNeil
Landfall, Lawrenceville, NJ
riojosie@gmail.com
Durham NC
Arctic Ice Cream has the best chocolate ice cream I have ever tasted.
Arctic Ice Cream is the best! The Jersey Shore flavor is a “blast in a cup”!
We’ll be stopping after work! I love you Hidden Trenton!
Thanks for the recognition! Hidden Trenton is awesome!
Don’t think that lunch counter is there anymore. Most recently the space was Let Them Eat Cake which reinvented itself into the gingered Peach and moved to Lawrenceville.
I love Arctic Ice-cream. Tommy, the owner, is a top-rate guy. My youngest ran inside to buy a box of snow cones while the rest of us waited in the car. He ran back all excited, since Tommy offered him (& the rest of us) a tour of the factory, because they were manufacturing a batch of ice-cream, My sons & our Finnish exchange student toured the factory with Tommy & enjoyed a fresh cup of the ice-cream straight from the batch being prepared—yummy!
The next year, mon oldest son was doing a report for his International Business class on his choice– a Finnish Ice-cream company, Arktinen jäätelöä or Arctic Ice-cream in Finnish. Tommy offered to make my son a batch of Cardamon Ice-cream for his class if we supplied the spice. How cool is that? Not too many people are so nice.
Hi. I was in Lambertville today after leaving Bobolink farm ( great cheeses and hearth made breads), and what better way to end a beautiful summer day than with an icecream cone. So we stopped in and I got the Fudge tracking. I really like Eddy’s but yours — WOW. It was yum from beginning to the little morsel end. Sorry to see it go but boy was it great. I’ll be looking to see if any one in the NY area sells it. Thanks for a scrumptious ice cream.
Cynthia